Artists in the Audience: Cults, Camp, and American Film Criticism

by Greg Taylor

Overview

Gone with the Wind an inspiration for the American avant-garde? Mickey Mouse a crucial source for the development of cutting-edge intellectual and aesthetic ideas? As Greg Taylor shows in this witty and provocative book, the idea is not so far-fetched. One of the first-ever studies of American film criticism, Artists in the Audience shows that film critics, beginning in the 1940s, turned to the movies as raw material to be molded into a more radical modernism than that offered by any other contemporary artists or thinkers. In doing so, they offered readers a vanguard alternative that reshaped postwar American culture: nonaesthetic mass culture reconceived and refashioned into rich, personally relevant art by the attuned, creative spectator.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691186276
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	06/05/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	46 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Greg Taylor is Assistant Professor in the Conservatory of Theatre Arts and Film at Purchase College, State University of New York.

Table of Contents

PREFACE
CHAPTER ONE The Spectator as Critic as Artist 3
CHAPTER TWO Movies to the Rescue: American Modernism and the Middlebrow Challenge 19
CHAPTER THREE Life on the Edge: Manny Farber and Cult Criticism 30
CHAPTER FOUR Hallucinating Hollywood: Parker Tyler and Camp Spectatorship 49
CHAPTER FIVE From Termites to Auteurs: Cultism Goes Mainstream 73
CHAPTER SIX Heavy Culture and Underground Camp 98
CHAPTER SEVEN Retreat into Theory 122
CONCLUSION Love, Death, and the Limits of Artistic Criticism 150
NOTES 159
REFERENCES 179
INDEX 193

What People are Saying About This

Robert Sklar

Greg Taylor's Artists in the Audience is one of the more innovative works of cinema studies that I have read in some time. It's essential reading for anyone interested in the history and theory of film criticism, and it touches as well on important issues in art history and cultural studies.
— Robert Sklar, author of "Movie-Made America"

From the Publisher

"Greg Taylor's Artists in the Audience is one of the more innovative works of cinema studies that I have read in some time. It's essential reading for anyone interested in the history and theory of film criticism, and it touches as well on important issues in art history and cultural studies."—Robert Sklar, author of Movie-Made America

"Since World War II, cinema has challenged American intellectuals to define their relation to popular culture. In this incisive history, Greg Taylor traces many attitudes dominant today-the search for momentary pleasures in mass entertainment, the ironic celebration of movies' wilder side, the phenomena of camp and cult films-back to the work of Manny Farber, Parker Tyler, and a series of avant-garde filmmakers. He shows how critics of great ingenuity and panache managed to revolutionize tastes, convincing guardians of middlebrow culture that Hollywood movies came alive as art only when treated with a mixture of offhand respect, humor, and bravado. This is a witty, thoughtful account of a crucial period in intellectual tastemaking."—David Bordwell, Jacques Ledoux Professor of Film Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

David Bordwell

Since World War II, cinema has challenged American intellectuals to define their relation to popular culture. In this incisive history, Greg Taylor traces many attitudes dominant today-the search for momentary pleasures in mass entertainment, the ironic celebration of movies' wilder side, the phenomena of camp and cult films-back to the work of Manny Farber, Parker Tyler, and a series of avant-garde filmmakers. He shows how critics of great ingenuity and panache managed to revolutionize tastes, convincing guardians of middlebrow culture that Hollywood movies came alive as art only when treated with a mixture of offhand respect, humor, and bravado. This is a witty, thoughtful account of a crucial period in intellectual tastemaking.
— David Bordwell, Jacques Ledoux Professor of Film Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Editorial Reviews

In a mass market dominated by oversold, largely disposable films tailored to middlebrow tastes, discerning critics and audiences often find themselves pushed to the margins, searching for fresh ways to wrest themselves from the studio machinery. As the title of Greg Taylor's invaluable Artists In The Audience suggests, this is a creative response, led by "vanguard" cultists and camp aficionados driven to find the art in junk or turn the junk into art. Taylor traces the vanguard tradition back to Oscar Wilde's assertion that an artist's work is merely "a starting-point for a new creation," and leaps forward to discover postwar American tastemakers from Manny Farber to Pauline Kael filtering popular movies through their own distinct, iconoclastic perspectives. A convincing and accessible marriage of film theory and sweeping cultural commentary, Artists In The Audience nails the cineaste's impulse to champion neglected work while reveling in the unabashed crumminess of cynical Hollywood product. For those whose film education is supplemented by forays into Danny Peary's Cult Movies series or episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the book offers a generous dose of creative empowerment. But Taylor warns that "artistic criticism" has its limitations--in particular, the question of how to react when a Charlie Chaplin comes along and merges popular entertainment with high art. Is it possible to mine the trash and still remain open to more serious endeavors? While Taylor admires critics who search for gems in a medium seized by consumerism, these troubling questions temper his enthusiasm. Artists In The Audience worries for a future in which aesthetic values are ignored and all the creativity and art comes solely from the viewer.
— Onions.com

Scott Tobias

Taylor (Conservatory of Theatre Arts and Film, SUNY at Purchase) uses the careers of pioneering cult critic Manny Farber and camp critic Parker Tyler as the basis for an examination and brief history of vanguard film criticism. This revolutionary criticism made the artistic value of a piece or the intentions of the artist unimportant--what mattered was the critic's uniquely personal impressions of the work and his creation or interpretation of relevant meaning from it. Taken from the art world, the approach was a reaction to consumer-friendly, "middlebrow" postwar modernism, and the vibrant American popular movie was the perfect material. These writers paved the way for the better-known critics who followed them, before vanguard criticism retreated into academia. Recommended for academic collections.--Marianne Cawley, Charleston Cty. Lib., SC Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

"Greg Taylor's intriguing study of film critics takes both a discriminating and aesthetic approach to the subject. . . . An illuminating book."

Filmbill

"The educated public has known for years that vanguard film theory is one part self-indulgence, two parts hoodwinking. Taylor's study shows precisely how and why the interpreters lost touch within the medium."—-Jacob M. Appel, Boston Book Review

"Taylor constructs a detailed history of some of the most salient trends in Post-World War II American cinema and film criticism. . . . [His] points are well-taken and his analyses convincingly argued."—-Robert L. Cagle, afterimage

"Lively, provocative reading. . . . This is a gripping saga as Taylor tells it, carefully constructed and lucidly written."—-David Sterritt, Cineaste

From the Publisher

Lively, provocative reading. . . . This is a gripping saga as Taylor tells it, carefully constructed and lucidly written.

Cineaste - David Sterritt

Taylor constructs a detailed history of some of the most salient trends in Post-World War II American cinema and film criticism. . . . [His] points are well-taken and his analyses convincingly argued.

afterimage - Robert L. Cagle

The educated public has known for years that vanguard film theory is one part self-indulgence, two parts hoodwinking. Taylor's study shows precisely how and why the interpreters lost touch within the medium.

Boston Book Review - Jacob M. Appel

Lively, provocative reading. . . . This is a gripping saga as Taylor tells it, carefully constructed and lucidly written.
— David Sterritt

Cineaste

Taylor constructs a detailed history of some of the most salient trends in Post-World War II American cinema and film criticism. . . . [His] points are well-taken and his analyses convincingly argued.
— Robert L. Cagle

afterimage

The educated public has known for years that vanguard film theory is one part self-indulgence, two parts hoodwinking. Taylor's study shows precisely how and why the interpreters lost touch within the medium.
— Jacob M. Appel

Boston Book Review